Puzzlings: Cutesy Enough for the Kids and Challenging Enough for the Grown-Ups

Puzzlings: Cutesy Enough for the Kids and Challenging Enough for the Grown-Ups

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Puzzlings is a storyline based puzzle game with the cartoon look of Ronaldo and the game-play of a cross between Tetris and the Window classic Bubble Breaker and so it’s in pretty good company.

Puzzlings is an adventure game that delivers a twist on match 3. Flip, swap, and spin blocks using your fingers. Solve puzzles and fit pieces of a talisman together to unlock items. Find over 120 items. Customize your avatar with a myriad of outfits, features, and accessories. Take pics of your avatar and email to friends.

So who or what are Puzzlings? They are sad little creatures who live in the boring land of Wardrobia. However, one day, one Puzzling, who you get to name, dreams of 8 enchanted talismans hidden throughout a land of sunlight and color. And there is your task, travel through the lands and complete puzzles to find the 8 talismans.

The puzzles are all variations on the same theme, a tower of colored blocks (with color specific symbols on them for the color sight afflicted amongst us), fill the screen and your task is to complete chains of three or more to make them disappear. Moving the blocks around is simple, either flip a row of blocks by selecting a single line or rotate a block by select a group of squares. As you clear the blocks you will fill your combometer and you’ll need to do this complete each stage, complete it quickly enough though and you’ll also win a speed bonus item.

At the end of each puzzle though you will need to clear a special item block before the stage is complete. At this point though the combometer will run down much quicker so you are under extra pressure to put the special item block together and complete the stage. The final stage you can attempt is the Puzzle House where you are challenged to clear the whole playing area in as few moves as possible. While the early levels are fairly straight forward the later levels crank up the difficulty and pressure just enough to keep the puzzles interesting and not too far out of reach.

Completing the numerous levels will not only reward you with unlocking more levels and the much lauded talismen but will also unlock multiple clothes and accessories for you to dress your Puzzling in. These extra items can take your Puzzling from a cute looking creature that you’d be happy to take home to show your mother to a crazy, mad eyed freak that any right-minded person would want lock in a box, throw away the key before burying it mobster style in 8 feet of concrete. However your Puzzling looks though you can also take snapshots of your good-looking creature for prosperity and review the pictures at your leisure.

But this is your Puzzling and so however they look you’ll want to move them through the 8 locations to complete the game with you. If you want to find out how you are progressing there are plenty of statistics via the computer icon including high scores, speed bonuses and overall completion status all of which are local only.

The only frustrating thing about the game I could find was the music which more often than not I turned down, luckily the game allows you to play your own music so even that small problem could be remedied. While the game is a single player game only there is enough here to keep you coming back for more, the game is cutesy enough for the kids and challenging enough for the grown-ups, so it’s a win-win situation for everyone.